


Bright Under a Black Sky

by Adoxography



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Episode: s01e08 Form and Void, M/M, True Detective AU, hospital visits, traumatic injuries
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-01
Updated: 2019-07-01
Packaged: 2020-06-02 03:34:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,069
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19433095
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Adoxography/pseuds/Adoxography
Summary: Connor tilts his head to the side and Hank remembers the way his head tilted as he loomed above him in the dirt, the stars wheeling overhead and Connor’s face blocking them all out as he leaned down and pushed their lips together. It tasted like blood and he wasn’t sure if it was his, Connor’s, or both.A True Detective Season 1 AU





	Bright Under a Black Sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [blackeyedblonde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackeyedblonde/gifts).



> This was a gift for [blackeyedblonde](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackeyedblonde/pseuds/blackeyedblonde) aka [honkforhankcon](https://twitter.com/honkforhankcon) for winning my 100 twitter followers giveaway. She requested HankCon and True Detective Season 1 AU so this hardly feels like a gift since I was dying to write something like this ANYWAYS.

Hank fights wakefulness every step of the way. He’s not dead, so that’s something, but he hurts enough that he wouldn’t necessarily mind the numbness of unconsciousness. It’s strange, waking up after dying—and he  _ was _ dead, he was sure of it. It’s too goddamn bright and his gut  _ aches.  _ His blood thumps under his swollen face; it’s sore, and just the act of opening his eyes had him so tired, he was ready to shut them again. 

He catches a whiff of cigarette smoke and there’s a squeak on the lino. Despite his exhaustion, he turns his head. Connor’s already halfway out the door, tense hands gripping his wheelchair in a white knuckled grip. He must have heard Hank move because he’s frozen in place, his pale back exposed by the flimsy hospital gown, mottled with black and purple bruises.

“How long?” Hank tries to ask, but his mouth is dry and tacky like he’s been licking cotton and his tongue sticks to the inside of his mouth. 

Connor seems to understand what he’s trying to say, even if he doesn’t understand what he’s asking because he says, “Six days. You’ve been in and out according to the nurses.” 

“I don’t remember…” 

Connor wheels back and offers him the plastic cup he’s got clutched in his hand. He holds it up to his lips and Hank swallows gratefully. The water is lukewarm, but nothing has ever tasted so good. He raises his hand to push Connor’s hand away when he’s done; his fingers are cold under Hank’s palm. 

He looks like shit, and that’s saying something considering the last ten years haven’t exactly been kind to him—to either of them, if he’s being honest. Connor’s once carefully coiffed hair is a mess of greasy curls shot through with grey; they’re too long and stick to his forehead and hang in his eyes. Connor winces when he pushes them back. There are deep lines cut under his eyes by the last decade of smoking and drinking and loneliness. And he knows Connor has been lonely, even if he won’t say as much. He knows because Hank’s been lonely, too. 

Connor’s face is bruised to hell, but the swelling is down, the split lip scabbed over and under his gown, there is a clean white bandage on his shoulder from where the axe had embedded itself; that arm’s been jammed into a foam sling. His movements are stiff, but Hank figures that’s just because he’s been refusing his painkillers. He’s going to be alright. 

“How long have you been here?” 

“They brought us in at the same time, Hank.” Connor tilts his head to the side and Hank remembers the way his head tilted as he loomed above him in the dirt, the stars wheeling overhead and Connor’s face blocking them all out as he leaned down and pushed their lips together. It tasted like blood and he wasn’t sure if it was his, Connor’s, or both. It was hardly even a kiss, more a press of flesh to flesh that only lasted until Connor had the strength to sit back up. 

“I mean just now, jackass,” Hank grumbled. 

“I was just leaving.” 

It wasn’t what Hank asked, not by a longshot, but it tells him more than a real answer would have. 

“Your ex is here. Want me to send her up?” 

“Fuck no,” Hank replies, his gut tightening, a painful enough sensation even when he didn’t have a hole in his stomach. “Has she been here every day?” 

“She’s still got power of attorney. You probably should’ve changed that after the divorce went through.” Connor pauses, then his voice goes soft and low. “She was worried about you.” He’s turning his wheelchair towards the door. Hank wonders if Connor’s had anyone come to visit him. 

“Fuck, fine,” he sighs. “Just… give me a… give me a minute.” 

“You’re so magnanimous.”

“Fuck you, Connor.” Hank lazily flips him off as he wheels out of the room and even with his back to him, Connor knows and returns the gesture. 

It isn’t until Connor is gone—until the squeak of his wheelchair has faded down the hall—that Hank breathes again. It comes out in a hard rush, a violent sob that tears its way from his chest until he’s doubled over in agony as his ragged breaths pull at his stitches. His face is sticky and wet, hot with shame, anger, and the hollow pain that accompanies loss.

* * *

Connor comes back, though. Which seems to surprise Connor as much as it does Hank. Rachel had left after a conversation with Hank that had started fine but soured enough near the end that he was pretty sure he wasn’t getting a Christmas card this year. Hank was sure he was going to spend the rest of his stay alone and bored out of his fucking skull when Connor had wheeled his ass back in the next morning with a cherry popsicle stashed under his chair. 

It was one of those ones with two sticks, and Connor split it down the middle, handing one stick to Hank and taking the other for himself. Fuck knows how he managed it; Hank always ended up busting one half to hell and having to eat sticky, melting ice from his palm.

“She’s going to get away with it,” Connor says through gritted teeth, before jamming the popsicle back in his mouth. 

“Warren? No shit, Sherlock,” Hank replies, taking a bite out of his own. “Not really our department anyways. We got  _ our _ guy. The rest is up to the FBI.” 

“But—“ 

“No.” Hank raises his hand, his head slumping back against his pillow—or at least he tries to. He misses and his tender skull knocks against the plastic headboard with a hollow  _ thunk _ . “Shit!” 

Connor scoots closer, keeping his popsicle clenched between his teeth so he can use both hands to adjust Hank’s pillow. 

“Better?” he asks, pulling the popsicle from his mouth with a wet pop. His lips are stained pinky-red from the artificial colouring. 

“Yeah, thanks,” says Hank, his own mouth suddenly dry. He takes another bite of his popsicle. “Anyways, I don’t wanna talk about the fucking case.” 

“I thought you’d want to know what was being done,” says Connor, a frown creasing his forehead. Hank remembers when those lines were half as deep, a lifetime ago it seems. 

“That shit was messed up, Con. I don’t wanna think about it right now, maybe not for a long time.” 

Connor’s mouth flies open like he might object, but he shuts it just as quickly, bowing his head. “Suit yourself.” 

Connor sucks the last of the cherry ice from the wooden stick—these ones don’t have jokes on them, not like when Hank was a kid—and tosses it in the trash. He starts to turn his wheelchair when Hank’s hand shoots out, grabbing the back of it. The motion pulls his stitches and he hisses through his teeth. 

“Where’re you going?” 

“Back to my room,” Connor tells him with a shrug, “I’m probably going to check out.” 

“Yeah, did your doc say you can do that?” Hank grumbles, eyeing the stiffness in Connor’s movements, the bruises still colouring his back. 

“They can’t keep me here.” 

Hank sighs, “Fuck’s sake, stick around for a bit, will ya? I’m dying in here.” 

“You’re not dying anymore,” Connor replies, so quiet Hank has to strain to hear it. 

“A game of cards, that’s all I’m asking. I’m going to go squirrely.” Hank stares at the back of Connor’s head, his hand not letting go of the wheelchair. 

Finally, Connor’s shoulders drop and he turns his head to give Hank a thin smile. “Alright, one game.” 

* * *

One game turns into two, which turns into six, until they’re bored of Gin Rummy and Connor suggests Snap with a cheeky grin Hank hasn’t seen in over a decade. Hank flips him off, but his smile is wide on his lips even as it stretches across bruised and aching flesh.

They talk about nothing: a little about the divorce, some about Connor’s non-existent love life, baseball. It’s meaningless shit, nothing that actually matters, nothing that Hank really wants to know. 

It’s not until the sky starts to darken and the nurse comes in to tell Connor to get back to his room and let Hank rest that he asks. 

“Why did you kiss me?” 

Connor goes still, eyes hard and almost black in the dim light. His mouth barely moves when he says, “I didn’t.” 

“The hell are you talking about? Yeah, you fucking did?” Hank snaps. His eyes narrow and Connor stares right back, unblinking. 

“You were pretty messed up, Hank. You’re remembering wrong.” 

Connor starts to wheel backwards, spinning around before he reaches the door. 

“Are you… do you…” Hank hates himself for every fumble. He’s wasting time and every second Connor is pulling further away. He wants… fuck, he doesn’t know what he wants other than Connor to stay. “Will you wait a goddamn second!?” 

“Goodnight, Hank.” 

And then he’s gone and Hank is cursing into his hands until the nurse comes to shut him up. She gives him a sedative before he can say no and the fear that grips him as he drifts back into blackness is enough to give him vivid and terrible nightmares of a place between worlds where faces are peeled away like masks and underneath there is nothing but hollow blackness. 

* * *

Connor discharged himself against his doctor’s recommendations—so the nurse tells him when he asks the next morning. He didn’t leave a phone number. Hank doesn’t even know where he’s staying right now. He doesn’t cry, but it’s a near thing.

Hank isn’t set to be released for another six days at least, but by day four, he’s about to start digging his way out if he needs to. He’s been off drip painkillers for a couple days now, but the pills they’re giving him are bitter and he hates swallowing them. He wishes he could do it with a mouthful of whisky, but he’s pretty sure his nurse would take him out back and shoot him for even suggesting it. 

He’s sitting in his wheelchair, peering through his window into the parking lot when a reflection catches his eye, a figure at his door. 

Connor’s had a shower, his curls a wavy mess rather than the lank, greasy mop four days ago. His face is still bruised and his arm is in a sling, but there’s a healthier glow to his skin, a pinkness that wasn’t there before underneath all that wax white. 

In one hand is a sad looking bouquet from the hospital gift shop, and the paper around where Connor is gripping it is crumpled and torn, like he’s been worrying it. 

“Hi, Hank.” 

Hank has about a thousand things he’s wanted to say to Connor over the last few days, but they’re all gone the moment Connor’s mouth curls up in a shy, tight smile. 

“I need some air,” says Hank. “Take me outside?”

* * *

It’s a hot summer night, so Hank’s paper-thin hospital gown is more than enough. Connor’s wearing a white button-up with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and a pair of dark jeans. He looks handsome. He  _ is _ handsome. It seems damn unfair that Connor can spend ten years drinking himself to death and sitting in dark rooms and still look beautiful while Hank just got fatter and greyer. 

Connor insists on pushing Hank’s wheelchair. There’s a little path along some greenery and Connor takes them along it until they’re far from the front entrance, lit only by the distant lights in the parking lot and starlight. 

They stand in silence for a bit until Hank clears his throat and says, “You look good.” 

“So do you. You look better,” says Connor. It’s hard to tell in the dark, but Hank thinks he’s smiling. 

“You don’t have to lie to spare my feelings,” Hank jokes, tilting his head back to look at the stars. They’re far enough out from the city that the stars glitter bright white against pitch black.

“I got you a present.” 

There’s a little brown box being pressed into his hand. It has his name scrawled on the side in black ballpoint pen and there’s a little bow drawn on top. 

“You always were a romantic,” Hank teases. He hopes it’s alright, he needs it to be alright, because if the last ten years has taught him anything, it’s that he doesn’t want to be alone anymore, and having Connor with him these last few weeks has been the happiest he’s felt since maybe… doesn’t matter. Connor’s here now and his response is a scoff, rather than stony silence which has something warm unfurling in Hank’s chest. 

“If I was being romantic, I would have gotten a nicer box.” 

Laughing hurts and tugs at Hank’s stitches, but it feels good, too. It reminds him of being in sync with someone else, something he lost after their falling out, something he’s only just getting back. 

Hank grins wide when he opens the box, pulling out the hotel sized bottle of Black Lamb. He goes to open it, but Connor snatches it from him. 

“Hey!” Hank grouses. “I thought it was a fuckin’ present.” 

“I’m not letting you mix oxys and alcohol,” says Connor, looking down at Hank with an arched brow. “It’s for later, when you’re better.” 

Hank grumbles, but watches which pocket Connor slips the bottle into. Connor’s throat bobs with a hard swallow; he’s not looking at Hank anymore, but at the distant city. 

“You saved my life,” Connor says, like he doesn’t quite believe it. “That knife was meant for me, Hank.” 

Hank shrugs, his face hot. “I didn’t really think. I just sort of… you were gonna die. And then you saved me right back, so…” 

“I thought you died,” Connor says. It comes out in a low sigh. The reflections from the streetlights are bright in Connor’s watery eyes. Hank reaches for Connor’s wrist and doesn’t let go even when Connor makes a move to pull his away, even as he’s leaning towards him. 

“I did.” Hank’s throat is tight and dry as he says it. He can’t look at Connor now, even though he knows Connor’s spun to stare down at him with those soft brown eyes that must be black as iron in the dark of the night. 

“I died, Connor. And I didn’t want to come back.” 

“What do you mean, Hank?” 

Hank knows Connor better now than he did a decade ago. He knows that his cold reproach doesn’t come from anger, but from fear. It’s not fair to lie, though, not now, not even if it scares the shit out of both of them. 

“When I was bleeding out, when I went under, I stopped hearing you. I stopped hearing anything. I was sinking down into something warm and black, and I wasn’t scared, I wasn’t in pain, and the lower I sunk, the less everything seemed to matter. It was this infinite peace. When I finally hit the bottom, when there was no light, no sound, I felt him, I felt Cole. I don’t know how else to explain it but he was  _ there _ , Connor. You’ve gotta believe me.” 

“I do,” Connor chokes. Hank still can’t look at him, but he’s got an iron grip on Connor’s wrist and it’s shaking. 

“My baby boy was there and then the warm, dark place started to push back, shoving me away, and the further they pushed, the less I could feel him until I was back in this useless, broken body, until I was back here.” 

He’s swallowing sobs, but hot tears spill over his cheeks and soak his beard. He tastes salt on his lips. 

“I wanted to go back, but death, or whatever that shit was... it didn’t want me.” Hank wipes his cheeks with his palms, letting go of Connor’s wrist. When he’s finished, he finds Connor kneeling in front of him, hands on the armrests of his wheelchair. 

The light is catching those wide eyes again, and they’re warm and brown. Hank was stupid to forget what getting lost in those could feel like. He’s still crying, his hands wet with tears, but he reaches for Connor’s cheeks anyway.

“Why did you kiss me?” he asks again. 

“I love you,” Connor says. “Is that okay?” 

Hank doesn’t trust his voice, so he just nods. Connor surges up, pressing his mouth to Hank’s, firm enough it makes it bruises ache, but he wouldn’t push Connor away, not for the world. Despite the pain in his gut—the still healing wound—he wraps his arms around Connor’s shoulders, pulling him closer. 

“Get me the fuck out of here, Con,” Hank breathes into those soft lips. “Take me anywhere. Take me home.” 

“You’re going to pull your stitches,” Connor mumbles back. 

“I can’t stay here. I can’t keep remembering everything and wake up alone in that room. I can’t keep thinking about the awful, dark shit that’s out there while lying in a hospital bed.” Hank’s only just gotten himself under control, but he feels ready to break again, his voice cracking as he begs. 

Connor’s lips pull away, but his forehead is still pressed to Hank’s. “If I tell you to stay, you’ll just get up and walk off to spite me, won’t you?” 

“Damn right,” Hank promises with a rough voice. 

Connor sighs, but his lips meet Hank’s one more time before he stands, lifting Hank’s arm up and around his shoulders. With Connor’s arm still in a sling, it’s an awkward dance, but they get Hank to his feet. It hurts like hell to stand, but he needs it. The pavement is rough on his bare feet, but Connor’s grip around his waist is gentle as he guides him back to the parking lot. 

Connor’s breathing is a little laboured as Hank leans more heavily on him. “You’re right,” says Connor. “There’s evil lurking in the dark, but you and I, we know what’s out there and we don’t go down without a fight.” 

The stars overhead are bright constellations, poking through the dark shroud of the night sky, and as Hank leans into Connor, he thinks that maybe there’s hope yet. 

**Author's Note:**

> Come find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/Adoxography420)!


End file.
